Chris Curtis dot Org

I really try to avoid these topics as I don’t agree with what the “mainstream” of what either side proports.  They are both foolishly dogmatic over major flaws in their belief systems, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re both failed religions.

But I thought that I do need to point out that gravity is a Scientific Law, and not a Theory.  But yes, one of the reasons I don’t like to attach myself anywhere near to the people that are on the forefront of ID is their complete ignorance to things that are proven science, as well as their ignorance to what the Bible actually teaches regarding creation and “The Creator”.  (i.e. reading Genesis and thinking that 6 creative days is supposed to mean a period of 144 hours.) But I digress.  I just meant to say that it’s the Law of Gravity, and the Theory (capital T) of Evolution.

By Derek Jones on February 21, 2005 at 11:44am link

I believe you are thinking about light, which has long been debated as it exhibits both attributes of particles at times, and of waves at times.  Gravity is simply a force of attraction, the law expressedly being Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation, thusly:

Every particle in the universe attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the particles

By Derek Jones on February 21, 2005 at 12:44pm link

You’re confusing two terms.

The hows and whys of forces that exist from large scale down to the subatomic level are still largely being discovered by physics.  Particle accelerators, for instance, show residual effects of an unseen particle on all other subatomic particles (which Leon Lederman, my second favorite physicist, dubbed the “God Particle"), though they weren’t talking about gravity.  It may explain gravity waves, however.

Gravity is just a force--like magnetism.  In fact, gravity is the weakest of the four forces.  The “gravitational wave” isn’t gravity, but rather a wave that causes gravitational forces.  A graviton is one such “we can’t see it but we can see its effects” particles in the above example.

By Derek Jones on February 21, 2005 at 01:50pm link

Ha!  Here I am, poking around the pMachine site, looking for some help on some code, when I see Chris’ name.  Next thing I know, I’m at his site and I see my old pal Derek—and one of my favorite topics.  Evolution!  The internet’s a funny place.

The issue with intelligent design vs. evolution isn’t that either could be right or wrong, it’s a matter of process.

Science is a process.  Specifically, you have to have evidence for something, then you have for form a hypothesis, then you have to test it, then you form a theory, then you hammer that theory with everything you can before ultimately disproving it or finding that it’s beginning to stand the test of time.

Evolution has made it to that last stage of the scientific method.  It’s stood up against rigorous tests and still rings true for the most part.

Intelligent design has no scientific evidence upon which to base a hypothesis, let alone a theory.  What evidence could there possibly be that someone or something designed life?  The only thing one could say, and it gets said a lot, is that the marvel and complexity of life demands it.  But it’s a pretty big stretch to consider that “evidence” upon which to base a basic hypothesis let alone a theory.  More importantly, it’s not even remotely test-able.  So it’s completely unscientific.

That’s not to say there can’t be a higher power out there that started the ball rolling.  But there’s no evidence, specifically, that would indicate as much.

By Evan on February 24, 2005 at 11:45am link